Folks Of Interest Junkyard etiquette

Jacked up and supported safely , removed NV 4500 and NO 205 transfer case (350 plus lbs ) for my Power Wagon , get it up to pay for it , and hear the words “ oh we do not sell those . “ You are hearing about someone that got mad enough the owner offered to give me the trans and case . I explained to him , I’m not wanting it for free , I just want to pay what it was offered to me for or pay for my labor to remove it . We settled on the asking price and I think I made a friend . He always speaks to me when I see him now .

 

I learned years ago to check the interiors of vans and trunks of imports for the stuff guys were trying to hide. Found a few double pumpers, intakes and 4 speeds in odd places.

 

This reminds me of the time I bought a motor for my International pick up at a junk yard. It was back in the late 70's at a junkyard in Hagerstown Md. anyway, I found the motor (was still in the truck) and went to get the workers to pull it out for me. This was not a "you-pull-it" place. While one guy was cutting the frame out, the other was busting out the glass with a hammer. Oh, the horror!
Just shows you this is not a new thing or just a "you -pull-it" place thing.

 

First trip to a junkyard, I was 12, maybe, and went with my grandfather. He was collecting nameplates - he collected almost everything, and lots of his stuff was automotive. So I scarfed a few, and the proprietor tried to stick me on price. Our opinion. anyway . . . .

Haven't been in a long time. There's an old yard back "home"- or used to be - a couple of counties out of town which I should visit before the guy dies. I haven't found one like that up here - yet. I keep asking. There's a car show today, so I'll ask there, too.

I remember the fears of having to wrestle parts off back then. I have a lovely collection of battery tools today: sawzalls, a grinder, and an impacter. Whereas the Old Man taught me not to screw up what remains for the next guy, there's some stuff which will become Collateral Damage. It is what it is.

 

I did some electrical building wiring for a local large auto dismantler who was opening a pick and pull. The owners had discussions over safety and customer access.
This was during the cash for clunkers program, I saw a nice 4x4 5 speed Cherokee clunker and the owner rearranged the paper work for me to buy it..
But I have never bought parts at any pick and pull except for a rear glass many tears ago.

 

What kills me the most is when I see a transmission pulled from a vehicle that obviously had gotten there from a rollover or other accident that happened while it perfectly driving down the road and some “technician” pulled the transmission pan just to get a shift solenoid. A perfectly good transmission destroyed, sitting upside down laying in the dirt with no pan on it for a $20.00 part! I live on the road leading to the local U-Pick-It and when scrap prices were over $300.00 a ton I was dismayed by what I saw go by my driveway headed to China and India! I’m sure the scrap drives for WWII were just as sad from our viewpoint, at least that was for a good cause.

 

I worked at a gm junkyard in rockville( mary-land) years ago ( 1980 or so), one of the ole timers had a winter wind shield policy, he would go out and look for the w/s in question, break it, then tell the guy at the counter it was no good, there was also a counter man there that a lotta saturday mornings ( who want's to be at work on saturday morning?) would inflate a plastic trash bag with acetylene , tie it shut with a rag, and put it in a low value car, light the rag, and we would watch the glass blow out, (like in the movies). *( also way back when, there was a phone # ( c&P??) you could call and get the time of day, we would recite " at the tone, the time will be..." boom!!!!, we were easily amused I guess)
Also a lotta stuff was wasted. Was really junk then, but valuable now.

 

You must have been there close to the beginning. There was also late night target practice on the carcasses that would be an instant arrest today.

 

I can remember when cars went in and were treated with respect, often staying in one place for decades until they were picked clean. Over time the folks working there became less car guys helping you keep an older car going and more drunk dumb asses hoping to make a few bucks with out having to be responsible at all. I have gone looking for side glass only to get there just in time to see somebody run forklift forks through the only glass there to move a car.
I still try to take time to unbolt stuff and leave whatever brackets etc I remove with the car if I don't need them, just in case someone else does need them.

 

Heroes and Zeros. Pick and place.

 

Ya, as a kid going to them, I recall asking for a part. Counter guy said go look for it. I did, came back and asked “how much”. (Speedo front for a TF truck). Guy says if you bring it back without breaking anything, 3 bucks.
So I went back, pulled the bezel, glass off and every, brought it all up to him and he said 3 bucks. I grabbed my part I wanted, he did “hey kid, take this with you”. Which was the bezel and glass.
Heck, even at pick and pulls these days I try to just take things off, guess it’s because I’ll know how to remove it/put it on the correct way when I get home.

 

Spend half my time at my favorite junkyards closing doors and hoods the cretins who pass through left open.

 

I was. you may recall the owner had a 50 cal simulator that ran on acetylene, when he fired it up- literally- it really stirred em up in Lincoln Park, I seem to recall your driving the roadster ( hope I'm referring to it correctly) to the yard way back when, I really liked it, but was not very knowledgeable about hot rods at the time ( still learning now).
Hope I'm not being too intrusive, you were a public school vo- tech teacher?

 

Yes it did! The coupster was only on the road in the early nineties. I first met Bruce in the fall of 80 after some old man in Aspen Hill knocked the front end off my El Camino. Bruce sold me a 65 Malibu wagon and that year the students learned how to change a frame.

 

Howza Bruthas-

I work at All American Classics and we are a full service yard. Unless we KNOW the customer knows what they are doing, our yard techs pull all of the parts. This prevents steering columns ripped apart, mangled side mouldings and remote mirrors, etc. Todd saw this first hand before opening in '89 and we have kept to this rule since.

 

I was working in a yard in the '50's. I was a grease monkey. Now they're yard "techs"?

 

I always look for the wrecked cars. That way I know that the part I need was likely functioning when the car was last run. I pulled the solenoids out of a stuffed 01 Avalon to fix my 95. Had no reason to try and save parts. I don't see much issue in a yard full of 20 year old dealer auction rejects.. Twenty years ago, when older carbureted cars came in, it might, but in sea of 95 to 2010 who cares bubble cars, Its dog eat Dog. It hurt me to watch a 67 chevelle 51 chevy, and a 58 Biscayne succumb in a yard I went to in So cal 20 years ago I will say, although the last I saw of the 3, all that was left of the Chevelle was the firewall, the 58 was a frame, firewall and (cut off) roof, and of the 51 Chevy was the trunk opening.

 

Was at a private junkyard in Greenville SC. in the early 80's to pick some o\t Mopar muscle car parts with a friend. We were there to take a rear 1/4 panel. The owner of the yard was there to remove the panel from the complete donor car.
He asked if we needed the rear window, when my friend said no, the owner threw a hammer through the window to smash it out of the way! Throwing his own money away........

 

Watching cars of any vintage get pointlessly trashed in parts yards makes me cringe. Take what you need, don't make a mess. I saw a very clean mid 80s IROC-Z get picked up by the roof with a forklift then rolled onto its side so a customer could get at the undercarriage. The roof and doors were obviously ruined instantly while supporting the weight of the car, and the passenger side was crushed when they rolled it over. Windows busted out in the process, so anything usable in the interior was now exposed to the elements. A cool enough car that honestly could have been put back on the road was totally trashed in the space of 10 minutes because nobody wanted to go find a jack.

A lot of the cars we're rebuilding now were once picked clean by the vultures in parts yards. Respecting the kill could save some future version of you a lot of headache. I see no reason to be so pointlessly destructive... I always close doors, roll up windows, etc.

 

A friend who passed away this past fall had a 13 -14 hundred car yard of pre 72 cars. He wouldn't sell you the glass out of the car unless the interior had been stripped out. He would sell you the whole car or interior parts. He said once the glass is gone, whats in the interior is gone.

 

What is sad from my point of view is that a few years ago Todd had to crush many acres of old cars. In the process he crushed two busses full of old transmissions that I wanted, but did not know about the crush in time to buy and haul those transmissions to my place. Probably was 200 old transmissions in those busses, mostly standards every one worth their weight in gold.

 

U-Pick yards are depressing. Here (Kalamazoo) the prices have gone up so much, that it's cheaper to go to a recycling yard and have parts pulled. I was looking for a Ford 8.8 Explorer rear for my DeSoto wagon, found a couple, rusted so badly I couldn't have gotten them out anyway, 200K + mies, for $300. Pass. That on top of the oft-mentioned damage to whatever is left on a vehicle that COULD be used if some cretin hadn't smashed it. I have better ways to waste my time...

 

Did you try LKQ, I know it's a bit of a drive, I looked up the price on a truck rear axle and it's a little over $100 with core

 

when i go to a junkyard, i usually respect the cars as much as i can, but sometimes i need to cut out parts rather than use them the nice way. i usually feel bad about it since they are usually in decent condition still. i wish i could find some fairlanes for parts, but usually all i find are 51-53 and 59-65 chevies.

 

I was pulling some parts out of a couple of 65 mustangs when a wasp nest exploded.
I grabbed my tools/stuff and backed off. The 'Yard Tech' pulled up on his fork lift and started smashing the roof of the rusty fast back to 'chase the wasps off'. Broke both front and rear windows with lift while laughing how much he hated Fords. The owner saw all this and fired him on the spot. Out in the parking lot later as I was loading up to leave the tech approached me and I thought he might wanna fight or something but he tried to sell me 'meth?' I think.
I was dumbfounded said no thank you an never went back.

Some people are high quality people and some people are low quality people...

 

I saw a blue Mustang coupe in a CO junkyard and got to thinking it would be a good source for an infill roof for my Model A coupe.
Since the Mustang had mostly been taken to by a sawsall I figured they would not mind cutting the roof off at the 4 pillars for me.
I call them and arrange to have it cut off and I will call by and collect it.
When I get there it is not a blue roof but still what I wanted.
The body it was removed from was near to the office and I could see that they had cut the roof off from a perfectly good car IMHO.
I asked what happened to taking the roof off from the blue chopped up body and the reply was, that it was out the back and too far to walk, so they chopped this roof off as it was nearby...

Junkyard owners are the same the world over, no mater what country you live in.
They also have that take it or leave it attitude that really urks me...

 

Hello,

Our adventures with the myriad of junkyards near our old house on the Westside of Long Beach was always a giant playground. We had an idea of what we wanted, had permission of the front office to go back to wander around in the area where the parts were able to be removed and start our work. Most places were like that, but over the years, it became a hazard for all concerned and the front office then had their guy(s) go back and find what part we needed and remove said part(s). That took forever and the part wasn’t always the one we would have chosen.

Then the scrapyards or junkyards knew what was on demand and started to dismantle the cars as to suspension, rear axle units, springs, shocks, transmissions, complete motors and a whole row or rows of fenders, doors and trunk lids. Also, a chrome section with all large chrome bumpers and such were the new idea. That made it easier for us to go to the separate sections for our own selections. But, again, getting the part to our car/truck was another story. More problems for the scrapyard or junkyard.

As the years went on, the search for the yards that still allowed us to wander around looking for the necessary part was still active. They were getting few and far between, but were available. From the Westside of Long Beach, to Wilmington, to south central Los Angeles on Main St. were the places we frequented.

Jnaki

We knew that those yards were businesses and at first, it was fun doing the work for a little part or two. but, as the yards grew and time moved on with security and safety in mind, the yards would not let anyone go back to the parts only areas. It was an all day event when those workers did the job of finding and then removing the part.

The parts business grew and the yards actually disappeared when some of the big yards started to categorize the parts and accessories. Then as the years rolled on, computer parts id in the yard was as close as your telephone. Call and ask for a part took a while, if the part was new but not something they always carry. So, there is still the search going on, only it is with the phone.

As late as the 1986-87 year, I needed a rear door for a family station. The repair shop was so busy that they wanted me to call 70 miles away to those Westside of Long Beach scrap yards to see if they had the specific rear door to fit our station wagon. The local OC yards did not have anything close and the new dealers stock supply was non existent for a 3 year old station wagon.

I drove 140 miles round trip and came home with a new rear door from a similar model of station wagon. A simple phone call and their computer search for the exact part was successful. The big OC system was not as abundant and flourishing with history as those on the older neighborhoods of the Westside of Long Beach and Wilmington.

Now junkyard etiquette was just a phone call away. The yards are becoming dinosaurs and are disappearing fast to faster. Pollution and pollution clean up laws are hurting those old businesses.

 

The P&P yards by me are gone. Only one I can think of has old parts, but that is way overgrown with gigantic weeds and vines.

 

We still have quite a few pick-n-pulls in Michigan at least on the west side.